Iran hangs woman in defiance of international campaign

Iran Saturday hanged a woman convicted of murdering a former intelligence officer she claimed had tried to sexually assault her, defying international appeals for a stay of execution. Reyhaneh Jabbari, 26, who had been on death row for five years, was put to death at dawn, the official IRNA news agency quoted the Tehran prosecutor’s office as saying. The execution drew condemnation from the United States and human rights monitor Amnesty International, which dubbed it “a bloody stain on Iran’s human rights record” and “an affront to justice”. A message posted on the homepage of a Facebook campaign set up to try to save Jabbari noted the “sad news” of her death, adding the words “Rest in Peace” alongside pictures of her as a young child.